System and method for delivering financial services

Abstract

A delivery system and method allow a financial institution to provide financial services to a plurality of remote devices. The system is comprised of a set of re-usable global components which are modular and are organized into services sets. The system and method operate in sessions and, for instance, employ a dialog component for gathering information from a customer, a rule broker component for providing answers to the various legal and regulatory rules in a particular country, a language man component for selecting appropriate language, a transaction executor component for performing transactions, and a presentation manager component for formatting outputs to the customer. The system and method provide state-of-the art interfaces that can be configured and delivered to the customer in a globally consistent format that is based on the customer's account profile, various languages, various currencies, different legal regulatory requirements, as well as, different sets of business products.

Description

PRIORITY APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a divisional of co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 671,424 filed Sep. 27, 2000, entitled “System and Method for Delivering Financial Services”, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 169,982 filed Dec. 10, 1999, entitled “Method And System For Performing A Transaction At A Self-Service Transaction Device Using Configurable Applications (Configurable Applications For Global CAT),” and which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 323,210 filed Jun. 1, 1999, entitled “System and Method for Delivering Financial Services” (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,249,344) which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 908,413 filed Aug. 7, 1997, entitled “System and Method for Delivering Financial Services” (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,816, issued on Aug. 3, 1999), which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application 60 / 029,209 flied Oct. 31, 1996, all of which are incorporated herein...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a system and method for creating user interfaces for remote devices. The system can accommodate variations in devices and languages, and allows customers to custom design their own user interfaces. Additionally, the system includes a delivery system for performing transactions at remote devices using a configurable common application base. This makes it easy to offer new functionality and features worldwide while leveraging the customer's account profile, various languages, currencies, legal requirements, and business products. The technical effects of the patent are improved user experience and flexibility in offering new functionality to clients around the globe.

Problems solved by technology

Since the ATMs must access the books of the banks to allow customers to perform their transactions, banks had to provide an interface between the ATMs and the bank's internal computer system that allows the ATMs limited but secure access to the bank's books.

One difficulty facing banks is that they must provide a first interface between the bank's internal computer system and the staff terminals, a second interface between the internal computer system and the ATMs, and a third interface between the internal computer system and the personal computers.

Each of these interfaces or platforms adds complexity to the bank's overall computer system and each competes with the other for access to the bank's books.

This added complexity is significant since the amount of resources that the bank must devote toward maintaining its computer system is increased due to these three separate platforms.

The complexity of a bank's computer system will only grow as banks continue to provide more and more services.

These additional remote devices and the connection to the ISP would further complicate the bank's internal computer system and would require the bank to devote more resources in maintaining and upgrading its computer system.

Each expansion into another type of service requires a significant amount of modification to the software and possibly hardware in the bank's internal computing system.

These additional services, although necessary to remain competitive, require a considerable amount of work on the bank's computer system.

The complexity in offering financial services will also be compounded as more and more services are being provided in an international market.

The platform or platforms needed to interface with the banking systems of other countries will further tax the ability of a bank to maintain its computer system and its books.

Another difficulty facing a bank entering another country is that the bank must, in effect, create a new computer system for each country that it enters.

This extra amount of effort required to shape a computer system according to the rules and laws of its home country consumes more of the bank's valuable resources.

The creation of computer systems for banks in other countries is complicated by the difference in languages.

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of the data in the bank's books and the need for total accuracy, any modification to this application must undergo an inordinate amount of testing.

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